


Ya Gotta Believe

by KaytiKazoo



Series: Where We Truly Belong [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Break Up, F/M, Female Stiles Stilinski, Graduate Student Stiles Stilinski, gardener derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-11 22:41:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5644474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaytiKazoo/pseuds/KaytiKazoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Stiles shoots herself in the foot, and stands in the way of her own happiness. This is one of those times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ya Gotta Believe

i.

Stiles walked up each flight of stairs wearily until she reached their door, dragging herself through it and flopping, exhausted, on the couch. She was too tired to even bring herself into the bedroom. She was too tired to even come up with anything witty to say about how tired she was. It had been such a long, draining day. She had started at four in the morning, waking up to get ready for an opening shift at Beacon Hills’ most popular coffeehouse and then dropping into the library to work on her thesis without interruption until she had to return for a second shift at the coffeehouse because _somebody_ had called in and left them shorthanded. She was achy, and tired, and her brain hurt, and she didn’t even know if she’d ever felt this bone-tired in her life.

Maybe when she had been possessed by the Nogitsune.

She barely remembered that now, though. It had been, she tried to count but her head hurt. It had been years, nonetheless. And she’d had such a great life since then, with her boyfriend and her pack. She had graduated with her Bachelor’s degree and was working towards her Master’s, and her dad was actually eating healthily after a tiny scare with his heart. Scott, Isaac, and Allison were happily moved in together in a small house on the edge of town with their first baby on the way, and Lydia was already working towards her doctorate in whatever that crazy mathematics thing was. Jamien had found herself a wonderful man who supported her and a stable career teaching in an inner city school. Everyone had a good life.

Which Stiles could totally appreciate if she wasn’t so fucking tired all the time.

She got up too early, went to bed too late, barely saw her boyfriend because she was always working (even if he insisted that she didn’t _need_ to work because he had plenty of money to cover their expenses), and when she wasn’t working, she was in class or at the library studying and writing papers for her classes. She was exhausted mentally, physically, probably emotionally if she looked close enough.

Not to mention, not being able to have down time to snuggle with Derek was seriously detrimental to her health.

But she did have a good life. She would rather be working herself to the bone than be running for her life like she had in high school and the first year of college.

“Rough day?” Derek asked from the doorway into the kitchen.

Stiles groaned in reply.

“Have you eaten?”

Stiles groaned while shaking her head against the couch cushion.

“Do you want me to make something for you? I can reheat the soup I made, or-”

“Soup,” she grunted out. Derek slipped away and Stiles groaned into the cushion below her. She had to take off her shoes, and change out of her uniform, and shower, and eat, and start her next barrage of studying, and text Scott about hanging out on Sunday, and, and- all of the things whirled in her mind endlessly. “I want to die.”

“That’s melodramatic,” Derek replied easily.

“I’m so tired, Derek, that the only real release from this hell is death. Just kill me now.”

“I’m not gonna do that.”

She whined and turned her head to the side to look at the television. She hadn’t realized that Derek was watching a Dodgers game, the score tied with, what team was that? Her eyes were so sore from reading those damn case studies over and over again. She probably needed to schedule an appointment to check out her eyes because she found herself squinting more and more often.

She let her eyes drift shut, and then Derek was gently shaking her awake.

“Come on, sleepy. Sit up. Eat.”

He helped her sit up, and eased a warm bowl of Derek’s famous chicken corn chowder into her hands. He smoothed back the little hairs coming out of her messy ponytail, and kissed her on the forehead.

“I’m gonna do the dishes,” he told her.

“Sit with me? We haven’t gotten to be around each other all week.”

Derek sank into the couch cushion beside her, pressing himself flush against her side. She sighed as he dropped his head to nuzzle her shoulder.

“I missed you.”

“I know. I missed you, too.”

She ate the soup, which Derek had perfected in the last six years of their relationship, slowly while watching the Dodgers. She hadn’t even been able to follow the Mets’ season because she had been so busy, but every now and then, she would come home and Derek would have a Mets game on for her to watch when she stumbled through the door. She had alerts on her phone that kept her technically in the loop to whether or not the Mets were winning, or unfortunately more often than not this season, losing, but she didn’t have time for anything more than a cursory glance before returning to working.

Her thesis was kicking her ass.

“Earth to Stiles.”

“What? Sorry. I was,” she chuckled. “I was thinking about the Mets.”

“That’s all?”

“No,” she mumbled. “I’m not handling all this work that well, honestly. I’m so tired all the time. I wake up tired, and go to bed tired, and I need a break, but I committed to this fucking degree. I just wish sometimes that, I don’t know, things were easier to attain?”

“Stiles-”

“Some days I want to drop out and just work with a bachelor’s degree. I want to just fucking sleep. I don’t care how I get there, I just want to go to bed and not get out ever. I want to-”

“Stiles,” he sighed, brushing her hair back. “Finish eating, and then we’ll go sleep.”

“Together?”

“You can use me as a pillow,” he said gently.

“That sounds really nice.”

After she had finished her soup, Derek took the bowl back to the kitchen, and when he got back, she was asleep on the couch, head lolled to the side as she started to list slowly onto her side. He chuckled and took a moment to just look at her. It wasn’t often that she was still, always moving, always talking, always working, but sometimes, she slept and she was peaceful.

He lifted her up and carried Stiles up the spiral staircase to their bedroom. He laid her down in their bed and eased her clothes off, tossing them towards the hamper to wash them before she had to be awake for work the next day.

He lay down with her and pulled her into him, letting her snuggle right up close to him.

“Get some sleep, babe. I love you,” he said, relaxing as he breathed in her scent.

 

On her one singular day off a week later, Derek had to work. He ran a greenhouse and plant nursery, because Derek seriously needed to be any cuter, helping little old ladies plant gardens like the ball of adorable that he really is underneath the leather and scruff. Instead of having her boyfriend home to fuck the stress away, she decided to clean their apartment because that’s what she did. She put on music, cranked it as loud as she could, and went about cleaning. She did their laundry, scrubbed out the tub, cleaned the windows and the window sills, and dusted all of the high corners of the loft. She even cleaned out old food from the fridge, decided to donate some of the canned goods in the back of the pantry, and took out the recycling.

Although, some of her cleaning devolved into a music video to Adele.

Which is how Allison found her, performing Hello in front of the big industrial windows.

“Oh, Ally! Hey!”

She hurried from the windows to the stereo, dropping the volume to a normal level.

“That’s a nice routine you got going there,” Allison said, waddling her way to the couch and plopping down. Her belly was big, so big that she needed help getting up from sitting and sometimes walking up the stairs. She was about eight months pregnant, and they didn’t know who the biological father was but they didn’t really care. They would raise the child as a trio, loving them equally without preference to either Isaac or Scott.

Which was nice, that little baby McCall (Isaac didn’t want his father’s name anywhere near their child, and Allison didn’t want their werewolf child associated with a hunter name) would get to have three loving, caring parents as well as a pack to turn to in a time of need. Stiles was glad that they had gotten their shit together and decided to move forward in their relationship. They couldn’t get married legally, but they had had a quasi-wedding ceremony where everyone celebrated these three dorks’ amazing love.

“You’re just jealous that I can dance and you can’t for another month,” Stiles shot back playfully. Allison laughed.

“I’m just looking forward to being able to sleep on my stomach again, actually. I love this baby,” she said, rubbing her belly. “But I need to be able to get a full night’s sleep.”

“Good luck with that,” Stiles replied. “Babies aren’t known for sleeping through the night.”

“No, that’s true, except I have two wonderful partners that are willing to get up with the baby on a schedule that allows us to get enough sleep to go to work and function. It’ll be glorious, and adorable,” Allison answered. “Besides, we have plenty of babysitters on speed dial if we need a break.”

She wiggled her eyebrows at Stiles, who shook her head but sank into the couch beside her.

“So what’s up?”

“Scott is working with Deaton all day, and Isaac had to meet a client who apparently is extremely chatty and won’t let him leave, so I was bored. And I haven’t been able to see you in a while.”

“Yeah, between work and school, I barely even see Derek, let alone any of you guys,” Stiles replied. “I was gonna drop by everyone’s houses when Derek got home, if there was time, but there’s not enough time for everything I want and need to get done. I just wish I could pause life for a few hours, take a nice long nap, and then step back into the situation without any consequences. How nice would that be? Someone needs to get on inventing that. I’d buy it. Or, more accurately, I would dream about buying it because I’m always working and never get a chance to actually enjoy the money that I make.”

She shook her head.

“Sorry, I’m venting again when no one asked.”

“That’s what your friends are for, Stiles. We’re here for, you know, receiving vents.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I just don’t want to burden you. You’ve got so much on your plate with Scott and Isaac, and getting ready for the baby, and working. I don’t know how you do it, Ally.”

She shrugged.

“It’s good to have a support system. Melissa has been great, and my dad is trying so hard. Plus the boys are actually really, really low-maintenance.”

“That’s actually believable,” Stiles said. “I remember all Isaac really needed was to be fed and cuddled sometimes, when he lived with me at Berkeley, and Scott’s always been easy to please.”

“Plus they have each other when they’re horny and I’m not in the mood,” Allison said with an incredibly cheery smile.

“You have the perfect life,” Stiles said.

Allison’s expression shifted to this dreamy, pure happiness look.

“I really do.”

Stiles’ stomach rumbled, reminding her that she hadn’t had anything to eat more than a leftover muffin when she woke up that morning.

“Are you hungry?” Stiles asked, standing. She held her hand out and helped Ally up off the couch. “Because I’ve got this great grilled apple, turkey, and cheese sandwich that I want to try but Derek’s all, you don’t put meat and fruit together, Stiles, because he’s a stick in the mud, and what’s the point of making food when he’s not gonna eat it?”

“Sounds good, actually,” Allison agreed, following Stiles into the kitchen. She pulled herself, slowly, up onto a barstool while Stiles puttered around the kitchen, pulling out Derek’s ridiculous Panini press- that worked wonderfully, but that was beside the point because who needs a Panini press in the first place- and gathering ingredients. “Are you and Derek happy?”

“Of course, what makes you ask?”

“I don’t know, it’s just a feeling I’ve had for a while.”

Stiles looked up from where she was buttering thick slices of pumpernickel bread.

“What do you mean?”

Allison sighed.

“It’s just, look at this place, Stiles,” she said like she was uncomfortable, gesturing around her. “This is literally the most bachelor of bachelor pads. There’s open-wiring and blood stains.”

“Hey, I’ve cleaned those stains!”

“People have _died_ in this loft!”

“It’s Beacon Hills, Allison! People have died everywhere!”

“It’s not just the loft, though.”

“Okay?”

“You guys haven’t committed to each other,” Allison said slowly, carefully. “It’s like you don’t want to move forward.”

“We live together, and we’ve been together for six years! I don’t get how that’s not enough commitment! You, Scott, and Isaac live the exact same life.”

“Scott, Isaac, and I are married, more or less, and we live in a house that we chose together, and we’re expecting a baby in a month. You live in Derek’s bachelor pad. From what I can tell, you’ve never even discussed marriage. It’s like you’re just frozen, stuck in this perpetual unsureness about your future.”

Stiles froze, because holy shit.

 _Holy shit_.

“I’m not trying to be mean, Stiles. If you and Derek are happy here, then I don’t care if you never get married, never move. But if you’re scared of committing to one another, you need to talk about it. I know you and I know him. You sometimes just need a nudge. I just want you to have the life that you want, you know?”

Stiles nodded, her mind whirring quickly. She shook her head before she could think too in depth about it with Allison there. She didn’t need to have a breakdown over her relationship with a witness, especially not Allison who would tell Scott and Isaac who would tell Melissa who would tell the Sheriff. That is not something she needed to deal with until she was sure that it was an actual problem.

“I’ll talk to him about it,” Stiles decided. “Now, do you want soup with our sandwiches or chips?”

“Yes,” Allison answered. They laughed, and the issue of the Stiles/Derek commitment was set aside for a while.

 

iii.

She acted normal when Derek came home that night, smelling like flowers and dirt, as per usual. She kissed him when he walked in, and they made dinner together, and went to bed at the same time, curled together under the covers.

Except that Stiles’ mind didn’t shut off when she climbed in with him.

Allison’s argument came back to her, echoing in her thoughts.

Goddamn it, Allison was right. They _haven’t_ really committed to each other, Derek to her, but also her to Derek. She was just as guilty as he was here. But, did she even want that? Did she want to live in a white-picket fence, two story, two car garage house in the suburbs? Did she want to be Mrs. Hale? Did she want that life?

Was she that kind of person?

She had moved in with Derek a year into their relationship, albeit part time while she went to school, because she liked sleeping with him at night, and waking up to his sleepy little smile. But that didn’t equate commitment, did it?

She had lived with Jamien for four years but that didn’t mean that she was committed to her in any way.

Jesus, why hadn’t she thought about this before?

Before giving Derek _six years_ of her life. Before promising that she wouldn’t freak out.

Well, that went out the window, didn’t it? Right out the fucking window the minute Allison mentioned it. She must not have been very confident in their relationship in the first place, then. Right? Because here she was, laying in their bed, staring up at the concrete, unfinished ceiling, freaking out.

She lied to him, kept things from him. He didn’t deserve her anyway, and not in the _I’m better than he is_ way, but in the _he deserves so much better than anything I can offer him_ way. He was good, and kind, and patient, and caring, and _fuck,_ she was an awful person for leading him on this way, wasn’t she?

She couldn’t spend her life with someone that she couldn’t give everything to, and those three dark secrets settled in the back of her thoughts, waiting for her acknowledgement. She ignored them, pushing them aside. They left a bad taste in her mouth, like they should. She deserved it.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, kissing him on the cheek. He murmured unintelligible words before settling deeper into the pillows.

 

iv.

The next day was long, and exhausting, and Stiles wanted to run from the building screaming that she was done being an adult. She didn’t want to work, and she didn’t want to study, and she didn’t want to be anything anymore. She wanted to go back to her dad’s house, set up a fort in the living room, and camp out there until it was safe to return to adulthood, or until she died.

Either way, she would be content.

She had never dreaded going home, because she wouldn’t be able to keep her thoughts to herself. Derek knew when something was bugging her, knew when she was stressing herself out. He knew her, which ultimately made this whole thing harder.

She stood at the entrance to the building, staring at the door as if she could will herself out of this situation.

She wished that Allison hadn’t said anything, because she didn’t want to talk about this. She didn’t want to think about this. She didn’t want to face this in any shape or form. She would rather live in peaceful, blissful ignorance, until they were old and past the point of buying a house and having kids.

**From: Derek**

**I can hear your heartbeat from up here. Are you coming inside or not?**

Stiles sighed and screwed up her courage, stepping into the building. Despite Derek’s insistence that the elevator was up to code, Stiles had never once taken it other than to move her stuff into the loft five years ago. She ignored it the rest of the time, opting instead to take the stairs. She only ended up a little winded by the time she reached the top floor, while Derek and the rest of the pack didn’t even break a sweat.

Werewolves, she thought, rolling her eyes.

The door to the loft was open when she reached the top, which was great because she was exhausted and sliding that damn thing took most of her strength. She dropped her backpack by the door and stopped just inside it, taking in their home. There hadn’t been many changes over the years, except to replace the bathroom door after someone had been thrown through it, and to fix the leaking sink that flooded their kitchen suddenly. It was minimalistic at best, which was amazing considering the amount of stuff that Stiles had brought with her from her dad’s house. There wasn’t a bed in the corner anymore, because Stiles was not risking that lack of privacy in their lives. It was just very impersonal.

There was nothing on the walls, not even a rug on the hard, stone floor. It didn’t feel like a home to her, and she was amazed that she had been able to trick herself into thinking that it was for five years.

Ignorance really is bliss.

“What is up with you today?” Derek asked, shattering her daze. She looked up at him from where he was staring at her, standing behind the couch with his eyebrows raised at her. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, it’s just-” she stopped and shook her head. “Someone brought something to my attention and I can’t stop thinking about how right they are.”

“And you hate when other people are right,” Derek said.

“Yeah, but that’s not what I’m angry about.”

“What is it, then?”

Stiles pulled the loft door shut, and collapsed against it.

“She was right about _us_.”

“What do you mean?”

She took a minute to figure out what she wanted to say. She didn’t want to destroy their relationship because she blurted out whatever she thought first. The minute dragged on. She couldn’t come up with anything.

“Stiles?”

“Why haven’t you asked me to marry you?”

 _Fuck_ , that’s not what she wanted to say. It was clear that Derek wasn’t expected to hear, his eyebrows raising higher than before, but he didn’t respond.

“Because we haven’t moved forward in our relationship in five years. We haven’t moved anywhere since I moved in.”

He still didn’t reply.

“We live in this bachelor pad of a home, where there’s no personalization, there’s nothing to indicate we live here together, there’s no _life_ in it. We don’t even have plants. It makes me think that you don’t want a full life with me.”

His mouth hung open a bit, but no sounds came out.

“Don’t you have anything to say?” she asked.

Silence.

“Anything? You’re just gonna stand there?”

The silence stretched between them, and Stiles shook her head in response.

“Look, I’m gonna go stay with my dad,” she said, grabbing her bag off the floor. “I need to think about this without dealing with your eyebrows, and you need time, too. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

She shook her head again and pulled the door open, muscles aching and tired.

“Think about it, okay?”

She left the door open as she headed out of their building. She didn’t want to go to her dad’s, in reality. She loved him, but she would have to explain why she was there, and why she wasn’t sleeping at her house that night, and she didn’t want to deal with that. She loved her father, she did, but he was an awful, awful gossip as well as a busybody about Stiles’ life. She would rather have a John Stilinski than a Rafael McCall for a father, though. At least he cared about her and had been in her life.

She got in her car- her Jeep had died a year after she had moved in with Derek- and dropped her bag into the footwell of the passenger seat. It was a small SUV which Derek had researched safety ratings and had bought for her despite her protests. She missed Roscoe, but the little SUV was a good car.

She didn’t know where to go, though. Where could the little SUV take her that would make her feel better about this situation? She couldn’t go to the McCall residence, because she didn’t want to face Allison. She couldn’t go to the Sheriff’s Station or the house because she didn’t want to listen to her father’s 20 questions.

She started up the car, and just hoped she would figure it out along the way. She plugged her phone into the stereo and started up a random playlist. The first song started playing.

“We sent out the SOS call. It was a quarter past four in the morning,” it started. Of all songs on her phone that could’ve played, it was Play Crack the Sky by Brand New that decided to show up. She ripped the aux cord out of the stereo angrily and threw her phone away.

“Not today, Jesse Lacey,” she growled at the stereo. “No crying in this car today.”

She drove to the hum of her own engine instead of songs from her playlist, not wanting to risk a breakdown on the side of the road. She didn’t know where she wanted to go, so she drove up and down the roads of Beacon Hills. The town was sleeping, or at least they were doing their nefarious things in the safety of their homes instead of on the streets, leaving Stiles driving around without coming across a soul. It wasn’t even that late, but the population of Beacon Hills had dropped significantly what with constant murders, some dead and some fled.

She had just filled her tank with gas the day before so she kept driving and driving, circling and circling and-

God, she was so fucking tired. She pulled over to the side of the road near the Preserve, and rested her head back, staring at the blue shade strip across the top of the windshield. There was too much light pollution in Beacon Hills to see the stars, unless you drove out to the outlook point or somewhere in the Preserve. She was just on the edge of it, on the highway that skirted the border, far enough from the electric lights of the city that she could see the stars starting to twinkle in the sky.

She tried counting them.

A knock on her window startled Stiles, and she turned to find Deputy Jordan Parrish smiling at her. She rolled her window down, greeting him.

“Hey Stiles,” he said. “Can I join you?”

“Sure,” she said, unlocking the doors. She hadn’t even noticed his headlights as he pulled up behind her, but checking the rearview mirror, he was definitely parked behind her. She really needed to work on that situational awareness again. Ever since the murder-death-kill situation had, for the lack of a better term, died down, she didn’t need to be on edge all the time, so she had lost that paranoia that kept her going.

Jordan climbed into the passenger seat and smiled at her.

“Alright, what’s going on?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re parked on the shoulder of the darkest highway in town without your lights on, which is dangerous. I know your father, Stiles. I know he would never teach you that that is okay in any way.”

Stiles laughed.

“He also taught me not to drive while drowsy,” she said.

“Falling asleep at the wheel, were you?”

“Something like that.”

“So what were you doing out here anyway? There’s nothing out here that-”

“Derek and I had a fight.”

“Oh.”

“Well, not a fight, because he didn’t _say_ a damn thing, but I fought and he stood there, and I just needed to not be in our apartment anymore.”

“Why didn’t you just go to your dad’s house? Or Scott’s?”

“Because my dad is nosey, and Allison kind of caused this.”

“Ahhh,” he said, settling back in the seat. “Want to talk about it?”

She sighed, tapping on the steering wheel.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, what did Allison do that caused this, whatever _this_ is?”

"She pointed out something that I didn't realize was true until she pointed it out, and then I- Well, I might have freaked out because I should've noticed it beforehand. I guess, this isn’t going to make sense unless I just tell you. So, she pointed out that Derek and I haven't moved forward in our relationship and I'm worried that it's because we're not supposed to be together."

“Stiles, you’ve gone through Hell with Derek-”

“I’ve gone through Hell with a lot of people, that doesn’t mean we’re supposed to be together. I certainly don’t want to build a home and sleep with Jackson every night.”

“Who?”

“Lydia never told you about Jackson?” Stiles asked, drumming on the wheel. “He was this super rich jock that went to school with us and wanted a boost, so he got Derek to give him the Bite, but instead of being a werewolf, he was turned into a murderous controlled lizard, and then he and Lydia’s true love turned him back to a werewolf like The Princess Frog.”

“Ahhh, she mentioned an ex by that name but I didn’t realize that he had anything to do with the supernatural.”

“An ex. He was, like, _the_ ex, you know? It was supposed to be Jackson and Lydia forever, until Jackson became a model and Lydia took over the world, and they were supposed to be the power couple of the universe, but then he took off to London, and she met Aiden, and then she met you, and,” Stiles waved her hands around vaguely as she spoke. “It’s history, though. You, her, you’re great together. I’m glad she moved on from high school boys, because they weren’t enough for a woman like Lydia Martin. How is her royal majesty, anyway?”

“She’s good. I feel like I never get to see her, since she’s down in San Diego all week, and I have to work weekends most of the time when she is home. But, I know that you know that, since you and Derek have that problem, right? But Lydia, she misses you, and wants you to stop by if you want when she’s home this weekend.”

“I don’t know how she does it. She’s always so graceful about balancing her social life, and her job, and her studies, and I’m over here drowning.”

“You’re doing great from what I can tell.”

“I want to give up, Jordan,” Stiles confessed. “I think every day that I could have been Scott’s emissary, and my dad’s deputy, and my life would have been great. I could have been happy by now, but-”

“Are you not happy?”

Stiles stopped, because she didn’t know. She thought she was. She thought coming home to her beautiful boyfriend was enough. She thought that waking up next to Derek in the morning, her back pressed into his stomach with his quiet morning breath tickling her neck made her happy. She thought that she was working towards something that she wanted.

Jordan let her sit in silence, the only sound between them their own breathing.

“No,” she said finally. “I don’t think I am. You shouldn’t have to think about it, right? You should know that you’re happy, without question.”

“Happiness doesn’t really work like that.”

She shrugged.

“Derek probably wouldn’t see it that way.”

“Well, then, Derek doesn’t get a say,” Jordan decided.

“Derek probably wouldn’t like that, either. Although, he didn’t seem to have a say earlier when I was trying to fight with him, so I guess he doesn’t get a say about this, either. If that makes sense.”

“Stiles, you need to talk to him.”

“Yeah, I am aware, but I don’t want to. He’s just gonna stare at me with his judgmental eyebrows until I feel dumb.”

“You need to talk to him, and not just try and fight with him. That’s part of your problem, Stiles. You want to fight, and Derek probably doesn’t even know what you’re trying to fight with him about. And maybe you’re right to be worried, and maybe you and Derek should break up, but you’ve been together for six years now, right? Six years is a long time to spend with someone before you dump something like this on them and run.”

She chewed on her lip and rubbed her hand against her forehead, pushing her hair away from her face.

“You need to talk to him, because he deserves to know what’s going on in your head, Stiles.”

“Yeah,” she agreed quietly. “I guess you’re right. I’m just terrified that I’m gonna have to let him go.”

Jordan didn’t answer, but Stiles was glad that he didn’t.

“How’s your classes going?” he asked a while later. She rested her head back against the headrest of her seat. She admired the dark and the stars of the sky. Her mother used to bring her out to the outlook point when she was a kid so they could stargaze. They had a portable telescope and would watch for stellar phenomena whenever the night was clear enough to see the stars and planets.

“They’re tedious. Like, I know they’re necessary but I just wish I could work at the coffee shop for the rest of my life. Hell, I don’t even need to work because Derek is so loaded, but I just, I don’t want him to feel like I’m with him for his money. But at the same time, I’m stressing myself out over something that I don’t really need to stress myself out over. Between work and school, I’m just so tired. All of the time. My GPA is high, and my professors and advisors love me, and my boss loves me, but I’m just- I don’t want to be a part of my own life.”

“Did you ever stop to think that, maybe, the overworking might be what’s driving your crisis with Derek? You’re overtired, and you’re overworked, and you’re not thinking straight.”

“Or maybe it’s the first time that I am thinking straight!”

“Stiles.”

“I don’t know anything, honestly, Jor. Tell me about the station. Any good cases recently? I haven’t really been able to see my dad in a few weeks.”

They settled in as Jordan told her about how Mrs. Ayers broke into her husband’s new apartment to steal a single K-Cup for her coffee machine. She heard about people she had grown up hearing her dad talk about, repeat offenders and new, about new crimes that Jordan just couldn’t believe someone would actually commit. They talked about some of Stiles’ favorite stories growing up, some of the arrests that she had ridden with her dad on that her mom absolutely was not to be told about. They talked about Jordan’s recent experience with his own powers outside of death and murders, and how that affected his performance as a Deputy.

Sometime around dawn, Stiles and Jordan were giggling, punch drunk, at some dumb joke a drunk tank regular had told Jordan the night before. He checked his watch and sighed.

“Okay, I need to go home, and _so do you_.”

“I’ll see you later, Jordan,” she said, unlocking the doors. He popped open his door.

“Go home, Stiles. Talk to your boyfriend. Get some sleep.”

“I will. I promise.”

He smiled, and stepped out of her car.

“I’ll see you around, Stiles. Take care of yourself.”

“You, too.”

 

v.

Stiles checked into a hotel at the edge of the business district, not far from the loft but just far enough that Derek wouldn’t stumble upon her car if he went on a walk around the neighborhood. She paid with Derek’s credit card, just in case they needed to find her in case of emergency. 

She drew herself a bath from the tiny bubble bath provided and sank into the hot water to think.

“Life would be so much easier if I were single,” she informed her washcloth as she soaped it up. She didn’t need to bathe, but it always made her feel more clear-headed, more human. She needed to be more clear-headed about this. She couldn’t go back to Derek without a full explanation for her behavior, and she couldn’t figure out an explanation the way she was. She hadn’t slept, and she hadn’t taken her medication in at least 48 hours, so she’d had way too much coffee in the last day or more, and she didn’t feel up to facing what she had done to them yet.

 

vi.

She paused, let out a breath, and pulled open the door to the loft later that afternoon.

The second she stepped through the door, she knew that something was wrong.

“Derek?”

“It’s about fucking time!” Derek snapped from the window, turning to face her. He was pissed; she could tell just by the way his eyebrows were ratcheted up to what she could classify as a Level Three (a level she had seen only once in their relationship when Peter had overstepped his bounds with Stiles), and the tight cross of his arms over his chest. “Where have you been? You said that you were going to your dad’s, but I called and you didn’t show up at his house! You also didn’t see Scott or Isaac, and Lydia or Jamien hadn’t heard from you. Do you know how worried I was? You can’t just disappear because you feel like it, Stiles!”

“My phone died,” Stiles said.

She had thrown it away from her after Play Crack the Sky had started to play and hadn’t found it until later that afternoon as she was getting into the car after checking out from the hotel. When Stiles had tried to turn it back on, she had only gotten the dead battery symbol in return. She had plugged it in to her car to charge but hadn’t turned it on yet, the battery at no more than three percent.

“Do you know how scared I was that something had happened to you? You can’t do that!”

“Excuse me?” she snapped in return. She would not be cowed. “Are you even kidding me? You realize that I am my own person and I don’t have to check in with you whenever I go somewhere, right? Because I don’t have to do shit for you!”

“It would’ve been nice to know where you were!”

“I told you-”

“No, Stiles! You told me you were staying at your dad’s, but you never showed up.”

“I have a right to change my mind!”

“It’s dangerous out there!”

“It’s about to get dangerous in here!” she snarled. “I needed some time to thi-”

“Oh, you decided to think _after_ you blew up at me out of nowhere? That’s typical.”

“Typical? What are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying that you cook up crazy ideas about what’s wrong with our lives, with Beacon Hills, with Berkeley, with anything and try to fix it without telling what’s going on, going off half-cocked into potentially dangerous sit-”

“So you’re mad that I didn’t check in with you. I’m a grown adult, Derek! I don’t have to check in with you, or my father, because I am _an adult_. I can look after myself, despite what you and everyone else thinks!”

Derek’s eyebrows raised to a Level Four, which she didn’t even know existed until that moment.

“You can look after yourself, sure! You can look after yourself just like the time in the Preserve when you almost got killed by an injured omega, or the time at Berkeley where that werewolf pack bit you, or the time you _sacrificed yourself and let an evil fox spirit thing into you_!”

“I’m not helpless, if that’s what you’re implying!”

“No, you just make terrible decisions!”

Stiles bit back the comment she wanted to fling back at him because she knew, she just _knew_ what response that would get. She didn’t want to shut Derek down completely, but she wanted the fight to stop already.

She honestly hadn’t slept well in the hotel bed, too worked up about Derek, and too far away from Derek to sleep.

“I don’t want to fight,” Stiles muttered, rubbing the heel of her palm into her forehead. Even if she had slept well that day, she would _still_ not be ready for this. When they fought, they went hard and harsh, not pulling punches. It was amazing, honestly, that they were still together. They normally said awful, hurtful things, always going for what would inflict the most damage.

“Why won’t you just tell me where you were?”

“Why won’t you just let it go?”

“Why are you acting like this?”

“Like what?”

“First there’s the sudden fit about us not being married, and then you go AWOL for almost 24 hours! I get that you’re tired and you’ve been working long hours, but you don’t get to-”

“To what, Derek? What? Be human? Question you? You’re not the boss of me! You are supposed to be my partner, not my warden!”

“Oh, come on, Stiles! You’re being ridiculous!”

“Me?”

“Yes!” he snapped, his eyes flaring blue for just the briefest of seconds, his upper lip curled like his fangs might join the conversation. “Not everything boils down to some feminist bullshit, Stiles.”

Stiles snarled at him, baring her teeth. She had spent too much time with wolves when her response was to growl and show threat displays.

“It’s my job to protect you, and I-”

“It’s your _job_ to _protect me_? What kind of 1950s housewife bullshit is that?”

“Stile-”

“If you can’t trust me enough to look after myself for a day, then I don’t think I want to-”

She almost couldn’t continue, Derek’s face fell, all traces of anger disappearing.

“I don’t think we should be together, not until we can talk about this rationally. Or maybe not ever. I don’t know. I just know that I can’t be with someone who doesn’t trust me, and doesn’t respect me and my ideals. I’m sorry.”

She turned, willing back tears, and left.

 

vii.

She pulled up to the McCall house, all three cars parked side by side in the driveway. She sniffled, her chest hurting from unshed tears. She didn’t want to break down over this. Not yet. She parked, shut off the car, and got out, heading for the front door. She opened the door, letting herself in before calling out a warning that she was there. Her voice wobbled.

“Stiles!” Scott cheered, jogging from the kitchen to greet her, pulling up short when he took in her more than likely splotchy face, teary eyes, trembling lip. “Are you okay?”

She didn’t trust herself to speak again, so she shook her head.

He took her in his arms and she tucked her head into his neck. She didn’t cry, though. He didn’t say anything about Derek calling to look for her, or anything at all. They stood there together instead, Scott’s arms a safe haven against everything unpleasant, until they heard a very pregnant Allison waddle into the entryway of their small house.

“Hey, Stiles!”

“She’s having a rough day,” Scott said, looking at his wife while resting his chin on Stiles’ shoulder. Stiles gripped the shoulders on Scott’s shirt, an old Beacon Hills lacrosse shirt they’d gotten from a fundraiser that felt as soft as it was old. “She’s gonna stay with us tonight.”

Stiles didn’t even have to ask.

She always had a couch open for her at the McCall house.

“Come on,” Allison said as Scott let Stiles go and she led Stiles into the living room. She pushed Stiles gently into the couch and kissed her on the forehead, smoothing back Stiles’ messy hair. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, I just- I got into a fight with Derek, and I- we broke up. That’s all I want to say about it now.”

“Okay,” Allison murmured, her voice quiet and soothing. Stiles remembered when her mom used to tuck her into bed when she was sick, before Claudia had forgotten her own daughter, and she would run her hands through Stiles’ hair and tell her that she would be alright and when all of her sickness went away, she would be stronger than ever. “Do you want to eat anything? Are you hungry? We’re making dinner right now, and we-”

She shook her head, cutting Allison off.

“I’ll be okay. I just want to lay down, if that’s okay, and listen to you guys make dinner.”

“That’s more than okay.”

Stiles laid down while Allison and Scott headed back to the kitchen, and it was then that Stiles heard Isaac pipe up, asking about her loudly. They shushed him and whispered the rest of their conversation, but Stiles closed her eyes and listened to them talk, not trying to decipher words. The conversation shifted back to dinner eventually, though, and she heard them laugh and chatter about who was doing what wrong.

She didn’t cry.

 

viii.

The next day, Stiles showered, dressed in an outfit she had left in her car from a few weeks before, and headed to class, then work, and then back to the McCall house.

She didn’t cry.

She worked on her thesis using Isaac’s computer and Google Docs, although she didn’t have nearly the same amount of resources as she did at the loft. She did her best, though. She couldn’t just stop working on her thesis just because her boyfriend- her _ex-_ boyfriend was being dumb and masculine. She worked, because that’s what she did when she needed a distraction. That’s what she was good at. That’s what she was _best_ at, honestly. She was a shitty girlfriend, a horrible daughter, and a pretty bad friend, but she was _great_ at researching and working. This is what she needed, to keep her head down, to work until she dropped.

She didn’t cry.

 

ix.

“Stiles,” Isaac said one day, dropping beside her on the couch as she underlined a passage one of her field assessment notebooks. Scott dropped down on the other side with a shy smile. “We need to talk.”

“No, we don’t,” she said, as Allison lowered herself into the rocking chair nearby, her expression sheepish. “What _I_ need is to work on my thesis, which I can’t do if I’m crying. So we’re going to ignore what you want to talk to me about because I _know_ what that is.”

“It’s not good to ignore your feelings, Stiles. You can’t just bottle it up and hope that it goes away,” Scott said.

“Watch me,” Stiles grumbled, angrily underlining.

“Stiles,” Isaac said firmly, taking her book away from her. He sat on it and stared at her as she frowned at him. “Talk to us.”

“No.”

“Talk to us,” he demanded.

“I don’t know what you want me to say!”

“Tell us the truth, that’s all we want,” Allison said in that gentle, motherly tone that she had taken to since she had nested and settled into their new home.

“Fine! Derek and I haven’t moved forward in our relationship in _five_ _years_! We haven’t looked into a house! We haven’t talked about marriage! We haven’t even talked about a pet! We don’t have even a _plant_ in the loft, which is weird because Derek is a walking green thumb! We just, we don’t have a future.”

She could see the motherly concern on Allison’s face transform into guilt, her soft smile turn into a harsh frown and her eyes fall from Stiles’ face to her own hands. Stiles shuffled forward and took those hands.

“Stop,” she ordered soothingly.

“I started this. You were happy, Stiles, until I mentioned it, and-”

“No, Ally,” Stiles said, squeezing her friend’s hand. “If I had been sure about us, then you wouldn’t have bother me in any way. It had to have building for a few months. I’ve- I haven’t been honest with Derek, because- we’re stuck. We’re not going anywhere. We’re stagnant, and it took the smallest nudge to bring everything down. It was like we were trying to ignore it, to tip toe around it, until we couldn’t.”

“Yeah, but if I hadn’t-”

“Ally, anything could’ve set us off. And besides, I’m glad you did, because it’s better to know than to live in that kind of unstable uncertainty.”

“So,” Isaac said slowly. “You never told Derek.”

Stiles dropped Allison’s hands and turned to her husband.

“No, I didn’t, and I would appreciate if I never had to.”

“Had to what? What does Isaac know that I don’t?” Scott asked.

“No.”

“Stiles.”

“No, Isaac. You promised.”

“Maybe part of the reason you’ve felt stagnant with Derek is because you’ve been lying to him for, what, nine months?”

“Nine months? What are you talking about?” Scott asked, butting in.

“You wanna tell him,” Isaac asked, “or should I?”

“Don’t you dare,” Stiles snarled.

“He’s your best friend,” Isaac replied, pointing forcefully at Scott, “and he deserves to know, if you’re not going to tell Derek.”

“What is going on?” Scott demanded, tugging at Stiles’ arm until she faced him.

“I, goddamn you, Isaac.”

She could feel Isaac’s smug grin pointed in her direction, even if she couldn’t see it.

“Right around the time Allison found out she was pregnant, I was late on my period, so much that I missed it and was heading into a second month without getting it. I took a test, and it was positive. But I remembered false positives, so I went to get a second set, and they were all negative, and- Isaac was there with me, helped me walk through if I was happy or sad or confused. I never told Derek, because I didn’t want to hurt him.”

“Stiles,” Scott sighed, pulling her into a hug. “I’m sorry.”

She sniffled, holding back her tears.

“I would’ve made a pretty crappy mother, anyway.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Scott said, his mouth on her shoulder. “I think you would’ve been great.”

“Thanks, Scotty.”

“I don’t think there would ever be a child in the world that was more loved than yours,” Scott assured. This was all it took, Scott speaking to Stiles’ darkest fears, to make Stiles break down, sobbing grossly into her best friend, her _brother_ ’s shoulder. He hushed her, dragging her easily into his lap so he could rock her and rub circles into her back. He assured her that she was okay, that she was gonna be okay, she just had to breathe. He kept her from a panic attack, which had been few and far between since Beacon Hills had fallen dormant on the danger front. He was an anchor to her, keeping her here instead of spiraling.

“I’ve got you,” Scott said. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”

She repeated it in her head with him.

_You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re okay._

 

x.

She worked hard, sleeping on the McCall couch and in her old bedroom in her childhood home alternately, worked on her thesis, and sometimes, sometimes she cried.

“Stiles,” the Sheriff greeted one afternoon on Stiles’ day off, pressing a kiss into the top of her head, and dropping a bag of curly fries into her lap. “How’s your thesis?”

“Long. Boring.”

He chuckled.

“Isaac followed me home, by the way,” the Sheriff said just as Isaac let himself into the Sheriff’s house. Ever since Isaac had stayed at Berkeley with Stiles during her first semester, he had taken to letting himself into wherever she lived, or wherever she stayed. She had gotten used to it, but it had never sat right with Derek or the Sheriff, who grumbled about lost puppy dogs.

“Hey Izzie!”

She could hear the tiny grumble from him. He hated when she called him Izzie, that’s why she did it. Because Stiles was nothing if not an instigator.

“What’s up?” she called over her shoulder, undeterred by Isaac’s response, holding up a curly fry for him. He snatched it out of her hand with his mouth and hopped over the couch to land beside her. “Stalking me now?”

“We need to talk.”

“Can it wait until I finish my curly fries? Because I have a feeling that this might ruin my appetite.”

“Please,” the Sheriff scoffed from the hall. He and Isaac chuckled together. “Like you could ever lose your appetite. I have known you all of your life, Stiles, and never once have you lost your appetite. You’re a machine. It’s impressive.”

She stuck her tongue out.

“Can I finish my fries _anyway_?”

“Yes, you starving orphan,” Isaac replied, taking another fry from her bag. They finished off the fries together and Stiles got up to take care of the trash. “Stop. Come back here.”

She froze in the doorway.

“I know what you’re doing. You’re evading me.”

“I was not.”

“Yes, you were. You’re not subtle, Stiles.”

“I would never-”

“Yes, you would. Come back and talk to me.”

She sighed and dropped the trash on the coffee table, sinking back into her seat by Isaac.

“I don’t want to talk about this.”

“I know.”

“Then, why are you doing this to me?”

“Because Derek deserves better than this.”

“Derek deserves better than me. Now he can go find whoever that is.”

“Stiles, you can’t just give up.”

“I’m tired of people telling me what I can and can’t do. I am allowed to deviate from what people expect of me, I am allowed to have moments of doubt, and I am allowed to decide when I walk away from a relationship.”

“Stile-”

“No! I am the leader of my own goddamn life, and I would appreciate if you and everyone else in my life would just back the fuck off. I decide whether or not I give up, and no one else gets a say.”

“I’m sorry,” Isaac murmured. “You’re right. I just want you to be happy, and I know you were happy before all this. It doesn’t seem that way looking back, but it was true in the moment. Remember that.”

She nodded.

“I just want to move on.”

“Okay. I’ll drop it. But, think about it.”

Stiles nodded again.

“Do you want to watch Star Trek with me without Scott making dumb commentary about how it’s superior to Star Wars?”

“Yes!” Isaac almost crowed. “Just let me text Ally.”

 

xi.

She was dumb to think that Isaac would just drop it. Isaac never dropped anything. He harped and nagged until Stiles cracked. She always cracked. Isaac was always insistent. It was a bit, an annoying bit, but a bit nonetheless. Stiles wanted Isaac to drop it, desperately. She thought about Derek constantly, about whether or not his plants were selling well, about if little old ladies are pinching his cheeks or feeling up his butt. She wondered if the bed was as lonely without her as her couch was without him. She wanted to call him and just talk about her dumb thesis and why had she ever thought that this was a good idea. She wanted her best friend back.

He meant so much to her. Even if they weren’t romantically involved, she wanted him back with her at least platonically. But she didn’t want to hurt him, so she would wait.

She would wait until the pain in her gut, the tight ball that felt like she was on the edge of a panic attack all the time, dissipated. She would wait.

Except, Isaac didn’t think she should wait.

It started under the pretense of them going to lunch on Stiles’ next day off from work, more than a week of sleeping between the McCall and Stilinski houses later. He picked her up from the Beacon Hills library where she was plugging away at her thesis, as usual, but instead of going to a restaurant, he drove to the loft and parked.

“What the hell, Lahey?”

“Okay, before you start yelling-”

“ _I can’t believe you-_ ”

“See, that’s what I was trying to avoid. I want you to go upstairs, and try, Stiles.”

“No.”

“Stiles, I swear, I will just carry you upstairs if I have to, and hang around until you start talking.”

“No.”

“Szczepan Stilinski!” he countered impatiently.

She frowned.

“Please,” he softened. “Just _try_. He needs to know what you’re so mad about, what you are fighting about. He doesn’t have any idea. It’s been almost a month, and he’s still confused.”

Isaac got out, rounded the car, and opened Stiles’ door. He stared at her until she got out, and he gestured her forward. She stomped angrily into the apartment building and up to the top floor, Isaac following. She stopped at the door and stood, awkwardly, unsure, afraid.

“Jesus,” he grumbled and pulled open the door for her and shooed her inside. “Derek!”

“What?” Derek said, coming from the kitchen, his voice sad and monotone. He stopped as his eyes, impossibly smudged with shadows beneath, found her.

“I brought you a present,” Isaac deadpanned in return, taking Stiles’ wrist and guiding her further into the loft. “Ta-da.”

“What is this about?”

Stiles looked at Isaac, and then to Derek, and then back, unable to form words. Any words. She knew what Isaac wanted from her, and what Derek expected. But she just…. couldn’t.

“Stiles has some things she wants to say to you, once she figures out how to do that.”

“Fuck off,” Stiles said, flipping her hand at Isaac.

“There we go.”

Stiles sank onto the couch, and sighed.

“I freaked out,” she stated. Derek didn’t reply, but she could tell what he was thinking, something along the lines of _no shit, dumbass_. “I didn’t think this was related, but I guess everything is on a long enough timeline.”

Derek walked over woodenly, and sat down at far from her on the couch as possible.

“What is?”

“It was back in the end of January, right before classes started back up. I realized that I was so late on my period that I had actually missed it and the one after it. I picked up a pregnancy test, and it was positive.”

Derek started to say something, but Stiles held up her hand and the sound died in his throat with a quiet croak.

“But I had to make sure before I told you, so I bought a couple more tests, and then, they were all negative so I kept it to myself.”

“I don’t get it. What’s the-”

“I was scared. I was so fucking scared of that little nonexistent bundle of cells. I’m not ready to be a mother. I’m not mother material.”

Derek frowned.

“That’s not all,” he stated.

She shook her head.

“No, that’s not all. That’s- When I was seven years old, I came home from school, and my mom didn’t know who I was. She thought that my dad had picked up a kid from the station who needed fostering for the night. When I was eight, she started thinking I was there to attack her. I walked in from an afternoon at Scott’s, and she started screaming at me to get away from her. She chased me through the house until I hid in the hall closet. I slept with my dad’s jacket as a blanket, because he was pulling another double. My mom found me the next day when she was lucid again, and she apologized over and over, but I was still so scared of her. And it kept happening, so I started to hate her. She wasn’t the mother that would kiss me on the forehead when I was sick and tell me that I would be stronger when I got better. Whatever beautiful woman my mother had been, she was nothing but a husk when the dementia took hold of her. I hated everything that the dementia did to her, and I hated her for not getting better and being stronger at the other side.”

She looked up and noticed that Isaac had left, the door to the loft now pulled closed behind him.

“I have Claudia Stilinski’s genes in me, Derek. I have a greater risk of developing the same dementia she suffered from. And I- I can’t bring a child, _our_ child into the world knowing that I might become Claudia someday. I can’t do that. I don’t want our child to hate me because of something I can’t stop. I can’t stop my fate, but I can control whether or not I make a child suffer through what I went through.”

Derek frowned again.

He was going to get frown lines- if werewolves even got those- if they didn’t resolve this.

“What else is there? There’s something else, isn’t there?”

“This is gonna seem stupid. It’s been six, seven years.”

“You can tell me.”

“It’s the damn Nogitsune. I can still feel the, the void it left in me. What if something it did fucked me up deeper than either of us realized? What if I hurt our child because of that damn fox spirit? I couldn’t live with myself.”

“Stiles.”

“I never told you, because why bring that up if I’m not ready to face it? Why put that idea in your head if we can’t have a family? But I guess I didn’t let it go, and I expected you to know somehow that I had this crisis about our future. I expected you to know that there was a hiccup, but I couldn’t tell you that. And then, Allison mentioned something and it brought that worry to the surface, and I freaked out on you. And I know I worried you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I talked to Parrish in my car until I checked into a hotel. Okay? I trust you,” she said, reaching out and touching Derek’s hand.

“Stiles.”

“I’m an idiot.”

 “You weren’t excited at all?” he asked, sheepish like she had never seen him.

“I was when it turned positive. I was so excited. Because you and I, you’re all I’ve ever wanted in my life, Derek. And I kept thinking about our little baby, what they would be like, and what our family would be like. You and I have such little family that I was excited that I would get to bring a little more happiness into our lives, but then the other tests were all negative and I kept thinking that yeah, maybe it’s best.”

She laughed hollowly.

“I even went to Babies R Us while I was trying to work up the courage to buy more tests. I didn’t know if I wanted to know the truth yet, but I went to the store, thinking that I was pregnant, and I, this might sound dumb, but I picked out a crib for the baby.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, a crib and nursery decorations, but then- well, clearly, the rest is history.”

“And you’ve been carrying this for what, ten months?”

“Yeah, we’d have a two month old if I had actually been pregnant.”

“How do you figure?”

“Christmas Eve,” she replied with a laugh. “You let me wake up late to you eating me out very slowly.”

“Ahhh,” he said with a smile. “The condom broke.”

“And we thought it was okay because I was on the pill, but nothing is guaranteed one hundred percent.”

“We’ll have to be more careful next time,” Derek said.

She looked up into his eyes.

“Next time?”

“Stiles, we were both stupid. You didn’t share, and I was overprotective when I have no right to be. And I didn’t know you wanted a house of our own. We can fix anything, just as long as you _talk_ _to_ _me_ about it instead of dropping it on my head and bolting.”

“So,” she said cautiously. “You’re not mad at me for the crisis? You forgive me? Because if you had done that to me, I’d be pissed for a lot longer than that. I shouldn’t have doubted you and me, we’re- you know-”

“Oh, baby,” he cooed, cutting her off and shuffling closer to her on the couch to pull her gently into him. “ya gotta believe.”

 

xi.

“Honey, I’m home!” Stiles called from the entryway of their house. _Their house_. They’d been living in it for only a month, since Stiles was a lot pickier about a house than either of them had realized until they had started looking. Money wasn’t an issue, obviously, but Stiles could find the smallest issue with a house, and it had taken six months to find one, and close to another six months to close on, clean, paint, pack, and unpack it. But they finally had their own little haven, a few blocks from the McCall residence, and another few blocks in the other direction from the Sheriff’s house.

Not only that, but Stiles had finally finished her thesis, and therefore finished her Master’s degree, and had gotten a job with Child Protective Services. BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE! Stiles and Derek had gotten engaged, and Stiles had left this detail out when she told her dad, while they were having sex in the loft for the last time. Derek had paused, stilling inside her, and grinned, peppering her face with kisses.

“Will you marry me?” he asked, smoothing her wild hair back away from her face. She would’ve said yes to anything he’d said, honestly; she was so close that she would’ve said yes to dropping an atom bomb on Beacon Hills if it got her to an orgasm. Except Derek stilled, and made her look at him, and waited for a coherent answer.

When she told her dad later, she said that they had been lying in bed, talking about whatever the fuck, and he had casually asked her.

She definitely did not tell her father that they were mid-fuck and she was almost too high on sex to know what she was agreeing to.

All of that had led them to here, Stiles stepping into their home, a shiny ring of the correct- she paused to check and yes- finger, calling out for her fiancé with a brand new surprise for him, like they needed any more. She followed the sounds of him singing along to the radio into their kitchen where he was making them dinner.

“What’s on the menu tonight, Chef?” she asked, walking up and wrapping her arms around his waist, molding herself along his back and pressing a kiss into his neck. The small hairs at the nape of his neck tickled her nose. He turned in her arms and kissed her passionately, his mouth tasting of tomato and basil. She hummed and let his hands slid up into her hair while hers gripped his hips.

“Mmmm, hey, hey,” she said, forcing herself to pull away. “It’s nice to see you too.”

“I’m glad you’re home,” he replied, sheepish smile gracing his face. She stroked his cheeks, stumbling bristling beneath her thumbs. “You look great.”

He dropped his head into her neck and nosed along her pulse.

“You smell great, too.”

“Hey, I have some news for you, actually.”

“Does it have to do with your scent?” he asked, pupils dilating as he looked up at her, expression almost hungry.

“Sort of. I don’t really know how it works, but I’m assuming it would change. Anyway, so I had to stop by the drugstore on the way home.”

“Are you okay?” he asked, flipping instantly into worried protector mode. It happened every time Stiles had to pick up medicine because she wasn’t feeling in tip-top shape. And it wasn’t just him. Isaac and Scott did it, too. Even Liam did it.

“Yes, I’m more than okay.”

She fished around in her coat pocket and handed its contents to him. He stared at his hand, and then at her.

“You’re serious?”

She nodded.

“It’s really?”

“Yeah. I took three tests, and they were all positive. I’m pregnant, Derek. Actually, really pregnant.”

The pregnancy test and the pacifier clattered to the ground as Derek swept her into his arms. She let out a laugh as he buried himself into her, holding her against him as if he never wanted to let her go. She didn’t comment on the wet tears that found her neck.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

They stood like that until a timer buzzed and Derek pulled away to flip all the burners off. She chuckled as he moved to kneel in front of her. She rucked up her shirt for him just as he pressed a delicate kiss between her hipbones, then turned his head to rest his ear against her belly.

“Oh my god,” he whispered, looking up at her. “I can hear their heartbeat.”

She smiled, letting him listen while she carded her hands through his hair.

“I wonder if they still have that crib I wanted,” she said, more to herself than to him. “Lucky we didn’t move anything into the office yet. Like we knew or something.”

He didn’t respond, listening to their baby still.

 _Their_ baby.

“Maybe I did, subconsciously. It’s not like we were exactly safe after you asked me to marry you. Maybe I knew. I dunno.”

He stood and kissed her.

“Maybe you did.”

 

xii.

“I can’t see my feet,” Stiles said one afternoon, looking down at her belly swollen with their baby. Allison, with Henry in tow- although he was toddling around the house now, so maybe in tow wasn’t right anymore- had stopped by with a lot of Allison’s pregnancy gear, and she laughed. “I’m actually pregnant.”

“Three pregnancy tests, and two sonograms didn’t convince you, but the visibility of your feet does?” Derek piped up from outside where he was tending his garden like the addicted green thumb he was.

“Shut up,” Stiles tossed at him easily, resting her hand on her belly.

“I took that to mean it was time to start nesting, actually, which isn’t supposed to come until later but, I wanted my nursery to be cute.”

“Oh, the nursery,” Stiles cooed, thinking about the things she could do to it. If Derek would allow it, she would’ve had their baby live in a Jedi-themed nursery, but Derek had vetoed it. They wanted to do two different themes and couldn’t agree on either one; Stiles wanted to do woodland creatures like chipmunks and foxes and deer, whereas Derek wanted to do a garden theme with flowers and plants. They had agreed that they were going to repaint the office-nursery yellow, though. “Derek! We should go to Babies R Us later!”

“Why?” he asked through the window.

“Because I want to start our nursery.”

“Isn’t that bad luck?” he asked.

“It’s just a superstition.”

“There has to be some truth behind it.”

“You’re the least superstitious person that I know. What is this really about?”

“I just, I don’t want anything to happen to the dumpling.”

“The dumpling, that’s adorable. Still refusing to know the sex, huh?” Allison asked, throwing Henry into the air. He laughed, asking again and again to fly.

“I don’t want to put any gender stereotypes and expectations on our kid before they’re even out of the womb. I want to love my kid no matter what sex they are, no matter what gender they decide they are.”

“How do you feel about that, Derek?”

His head appeared in the window, just barely.

“I’m okay with it. I understand where she’s coming from, and she’s worked with kids that have suffered because of enforced gender expectations.”

“See? The husband-to-be agrees with me,” she said, sinking into the rocking chair that the Sheriff had gotten out of storage. It had been the rocking chair in her own nursery, her mother rocking her to sleep most nights in it. Derek had cleaned it up, given it a fresh coat of stain, and replaced the cushion. It was Stiles’ favorite seat now, curled up most nights, reading out loud to the dumpling. “Let me see the nephew.”

Allison passed Henry over to Stiles who settled him on her legs.

“Hi Henry! How are you today?”

Henry burbled in return. His first word had spoken to Derek, of all people. He had pointed at Scott and Isaac, looked at Derek and said uncertainly, “Dadas?” He had turned his face back to Derek, looking for an answer.

“Yeah, those are your daddies,” Derek had replied, and Henry had giggled and started to repeat Dadas over and over.

“A few more months and you’ll have a cousin all of your own. You’ll have to tell me what it’s like when you’re older.”

“You’re not related to him; why would the dumpling be?” Derek stated from the garden.

“His father is my brother.”

“By words only.”

“Isn’t that enough, you pain in the ass?”

He mocked her in a high pitched voice, and she picked up the nearest pillow to launch at him. It hit the window but did not go through it, flopping uselessly onto the ground.

“I’ll leave you at altar.”

“Please,” Derek scoffed.

“Do you see what I put up with every day?” Stiles asked, looking at Allison while gesturing at Derek.

“At least you only have one of them.”

“Good point.”

Allison left a while later, and when Derek was done tending his garden, Stiles convinced him to accompany her to Babies R Us with his credit card.

“Come on. Our baby deserves the best,” she cooed, holding his hand in her own, stroking her thumb over the back of his hand. “Don’t you want the dumpling to have the best we can give them?”

He sighed.

“You’re a manipulator, you know that?”

“I like to think of myself more as an outcome engineer.”

She led him to the cribs and found the one she had picked out the first time she had come here.

“Wow,” he said, running his free hand over the dark-stained wood. “It’s perfect.”

“And, I had some ideas for the nursery.”

“No Jedi theme.”

“Well, I was thinking that our baby is half you and half me, right? Shouldn’t their nursery be half your idea, half mine?”

“Woodland creatures and flowers?”

“I was thinking more flora and fauna kind of thing? You know, trees and flowers, little deer, wolves,” she said with a shrug. “What do you think?”

“I love it. Especially the fact that you want to put wolves in our pup’s nursery. Little on the nose, don’t you think?”

She laughed.

“What, do you think we should put evil fox spirits on the wall instead?”

He rolled his eyes at her hard.

“Put wolves on the wall, Stiles, if that’s what you want. It’ll make the dumpling feel at home,” he murmured, kissing her soothingly.

She grinned at the thought. He would give her almost anything, and it wasn’t entirely because she was pregnant, growing his little dumpling in her own body like an adorable, wanted parasite. He loved her, and she loved him, and they were _good_ finally. They were so happy. They were good, and happy, and they were adults that talked when they had problems. They lived in their own house, and as soon as Stiles could fit into a wedding dress, they were going to get married.

Everything was good.

Stiles looked at her fiancé, one of his hand in hers, the other resting on the wooden frame of the crib. She smiled to herself with one hand resting on the swell of her belly, her dumpling moving around and kicking her gently, and was content to be here in this moment with her family.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! Here's a thing that wasn't supposed to take this long or be this long.  
> Happy Teen Wolf Tuesday!!!!  
> Remember to kudos, comment, share, bookmark, whatever!!!  
> Find me on Tumblr at scoottiemccutie.tumblr.com
> 
> DFTBA  
> K


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